


Aftermath

by misha_anon



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Domestic, First Kiss, Fluff, Kissing, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 02:50:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20463803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misha_anon/pseuds/misha_anon
Summary: This is the first night of the rest of their lives.





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't posted any fic in literal years so it's probably rusty, but these idiots inspire me to write self-indulgent fluffiness.

Crowley was never a very good demon. He never even wanted to be a demon; he just hung around the wrong people and asked too many questions and next thing he knew, he was a demon. Aziraphale on the other hand? He _was_ a good angel. He believed in heaven's causes and righteousness and believed his life was meant to be spent doing good instead of doing bad and everything his world revolved around was based on that. The arrangement with Crowley aside (and honestly that really was a small thing anyway), he did his very best to be good and do the right thing, to make heaven proud. He did so even when the right thing was the opposite of what heaven wanted.

He worked so hard to find a way to avert the apocalypse because he loved humanity and wanted them to survive and when he reported his success to heaven, they told him he was wrong and they didn't want to avoid the war and that he'd been wasting his time. They'd basically laughed at him for doing what he'd always thought he was supposed to do. For being a good angel and doing the right thing. And that fucking **stung**.

Unlike Crowley, Aziraphale felt the exact moment he lost his faith. He felt it when talking to the Metatron and hearing that nobody cared about all his hard work and that the war would go forward despite his efforts and honestly nobody cared what he thought about _any_ of it, now that you mention it. He felt a sudden, overwhelming wave of bitterness and sadness and utter hopelessness because even though he never felt like he fit in with the angels, he always knew he was one of them. After his chat with heaven, he didn't even have that.

Now, he's sitting on the bench waiting for the bus and when Crowley tells him that they're on each other's side, not heaven's or hell's, that stings, too. Because it's true and for the first time in his long life, Aziraphale knows it's true. In one day, he's lost his beloved bookstore and everything in it as well as his entire family. Sure, he'd stopped the war, stopped the end of the world, but Aziraphale doesn't have anything left. Except Crowley.

Crowley, who so gently reminds him that the bookstore isn't there waiting for him tonight, who with such guarded hopefulness asks Aziraphale to come back to his apartment, to come home with him, for what must have been the thousandth time. And the first 999 times Aziraphale said no, but this time? He doesn't have it in him to say no again, doesn't have it in him to try to run away and find something to do with himself. Most of all, he doesn't have it in him to be physically alone because he's already completely alone in every other way, isn't he?

So, when he sits down beside Crowley on the bus, Aziraphale sits close. So close their thighs touch, so close his hand brushes Crowley's. He doesn't say anything, though, and Crowley doesn't ask again if he wants to stay the night, but when the bus stops at Crowley's apartment Aziraphale follows him off. He follows Crowley up to his door and honestly Crowley can't believe it. He can't breathe, he can't think, he can't move fast enough or slow down enough all at the same time because he can’t believe this is actually happening.

Even before they get up the stairs into his apartment, Crowley’s fingertips ache to touch Aziraphale. Nothing untoward, of course. No, of course not, just to _touch_ him. To hold him. To comfort him. Crowley can feel the hurt coming off the angel in waves so strong they hurt _him_ and wants nothing more than to ease that pain. How could he want anything else after 6000 years of knowing Aziraphale, of being the only other supernatural entity living on earth with him?

As soon as they get into the apartment, Aziraphale decides he'd made a terrible mistake. Now that they're here he doesn't know what to say, what to do with himself, What This Means. But, even as he's turning to try to go to the door, Crowley is right there, tugging at his sleeve and whispering, "Don't go."

He knows exactly what Aziraphale is thinking. He expected nothing else to be honest. But when Aziraphale turns to him looking lost and alone and so fucking _scared_, Crowley just tugs at his sleeve again and smiles a gentle little smile and takes off his sunglasses as he tells Aziraphale, "Go take a shower and let me make you some tea. If you still want to go, I won't try to stop you."

Aziraphale huffs a little because they both know he doesn't actually need a shower. He can just miracle away the dirt and grime and remnants of the day whenever he’s ready. What Crowley knows that he doesn’t is that sometimes a good, hot shower is exactly what you need whether you _require_ one or not.

Crowley smiles again. That charming smile, the tempting one, the one that can get anyone to say yes to anything and says, “Trust me, angel, it'll do you a world of good."

And Aziraphale does. He _does_ trust Crowley. So, he lets the demon show him to the bathroom and give him the biggest, fluffiest towel imaginable. He lets Crowley help him get the water adjusted to just the right temperature, and then Crowley retreats, stops at the door to tell Aziraphale to take his time showering before he closes it behind him. Then he goes to make them both a cup of tea because honestly they've earned it after the kind of day they’ve had.

Aziraphale doesn't take his time. He tries to, but the shower is as weird as it is nice and he can only take so much before his skin is uncomfortably warm and his hair is a tangled, wet mess and if he's being honest with himself, Crowley is too far away for his liking. So he turns off the spray and steps back out, dries himself off and looks at his clothes folded neatly on the counter and decides that maybe it's time to buy something else soon. Instead of slipping back into the dirty suit, he opts for Crowley's bathrobe hanging on the hook beside the door for tonight (and pretends not to notice that it's conveniently _his_ size, not Crowley's).

He ties it tightly around himself and it's so soft he thinks he could probably live in it forever. After a quick check in the mirror that his hair isn't any more ridiculous than usual, he takes a deep breath and opens the bathroom door. The cool air of the apartment rushing over him feeling so good, so much better than he ever would have thought it could and he can smell the tea Crowley made for them and suddenly the world doesn't seem quite as bad as it did half an hour ago.

He makes his way to the kitchen, following the long hallway back through the living room, following the scent of tea that's getting stronger and stronger and when he steps into the kitchen, Crowley is already sitting at the table with two steaming mugs in front of him. Aziraphale sees Crowley's breath catch when he looks up, when he sees the angel standing there wearing a thick, black bathrobe instead of the suit he's worn for the last hundred plus years and it makes Aziraphale’s cheeks warm.

Crowley smiles and says (not _too_ smugly), "Guess you decided to stay, then."

It makes Aziraphale blush properly, but he just nods and answers, "Seems like it."

His words so earnest that it makes Crowley laugh and that makes him laugh, too. The next thing he knows he's on the chair across from Crowley, looking over the rim of his mug at the demon and he'd never admit how much at home he feels, but he really _does_. They don't talk much while they drink their tea, but that's okay. for once the silence doesn't feel oppressive to either of them, it feels like something that could become comfortable with a little practice. What they do talk about is Agnes’s last prediction. They talk about what it could mean and what they should do, and they decide that before they go anywhere tomorrow, they'll change their faces. They’ll change themselves. They’ll ready themselves for whatever is to come from their respective "sides." 

Aziraphale doesn't sleep, but he's so tired. He’s so weary physically and emotionally and spiritually because even he has to admit it's been one hell of a day (pardon his language). He's so tired that when Crowley has cleared the mugs from the table and offers his hand, Aziraphale doesn't think twice about taking it, about letting Crowley help him to his feet. And if there's a spark where their skin meets? Well, that must just be an illusion.

When Crowley leads him from the kitchen Aziraphale suddenly tenses up, his head full of all kinds of things that would make him blush if he weren't so worried about them actually happening right here and right now and when Crowley looks back, he sees everything. He sees the tightness in Aziraphale's face and the worry that's crowding right around the angel's eyes and he smiles so, so softly. Before Crowley can even say anything at all to reassure Aziraphale, he sees the worry slide away like water off a duck's back. He sees the angel relax again because there's just something about the way Crowley is looking at him that tells him it's not like that. With one smile, he knows there's nothing even remotely Like That in Crowley's head. 

Instead of to the bed as he'd feared, Crowley leads him to the couch. The demon sits down and pulls Aziraphale down beside him and god, Aziraphale wants so badly so suddenly to kiss Crowley. He wants to kiss him senseless and taste him and to _know_ him in a way that's so new and different that it makes Aziraphale's chest tight just thinking about it. It'd be so easy to do exactly that. But, good angels don't do that kind of thing, now do they?

It’s Crowley who does it. It’s Crowley who _has_ to do it. It’s the demon's hand so gentle on his angel's cheek then cupping his jaw then pulling him in in in so gently, so tentatively, so fucking _carefully_. And when their lips touch, it's the same kind of spark as their fingers touching only brighter, hotter. As hot as a million suns and buzzing through their heads and their chests and all the way to the soles of their feet. It's a gentle kiss, soft and slow and way too brief for either of their taste, honestly.

When their lips part and Aziraphale's eyes flutter open to see Crowley watching him with a look that's half love and half something that Aziraphale has never seen in anyone's eyes before, it's so worth how short the kiss was. The angel flushes warm and he's pretty damned sure Crowley is blushing, too, even though the demon would definitely never admit it and there's such a beautiful smile on Crowley’s face, soft and warm.

Crowley’s eyes are so unguarded in a way Aziraphale has never seen them before and he's the one who leans in this time. He leans in to kiss Crowley, because good angels do what they want come to think of it, and it's just as surprising as last time. It’s just as intense and beautiful and filled to the brim with _love_ that it makes them both dizzy and this time it lasts longer. They take their time, taste one another, bodies pressed close and soft and hands curled so lightly in each other's clothes just to hold the other a little closer still.

When it's over, they're both smiling, both blushing, both feeling giddier than they've probably ever felt. Crowley's fingers slip into Aziraphale's hair, stroking gently to untangle it, to smooth it for him, and when Aziraphale shifts to lie down on the couch, to put his head in Crowley's lap? Crowley doesn't argue for a second, doesn't even think about it. He doesn't even think about moving his hand, either.

He just keeps stroking through Aziraphale's hair, a smile still pulling at his lips as he looks down at the angel who means everything to him, who _is_ everything to him. He keeps stroking Aziraphale’s hair and touching his face as silence falls between them, soft and comfortable and warm and _good_.

They both know there's so much more to say. There so many things to get straight between them, so many things to settle to make anything work, to make sure that Crowley doesn't go too fast for Aziraphale (if this is going anywhere at all). But for tonight, this is enough. It’s more than enough, in fact. It’s perfect. It's the best ending they could have possibly hoped for to this hopelessly wrecked day. And for the moment, for this quiet, beautiful moment tucked safely away in Crowley’s apartment with room to breathe, the future doesn't seem quite so scary for either of them.


End file.
